Sierra In Peril- SF 201

Preference when the point was I did it for people like my predecessor. I did it for oh the desert fish society. I did of course he's married to Decker. He's wonderful people who know and love the area and made a plan to study people. If we didn't have people like that most of the ones family I would have been there. Because their view of the area and my view were very simply because I've been coming here since 1958 so at least. That. Whole be. Oh I don't know what he has like but I says I'm one of the ideas of things he doesn't like bed and in fact some of them a pan out. I really hope they do. And I see no conflict. Ecologically sound way to make a lick the diverse. There's no reason I can equate the same time. More power to him. OK here

we are you know. And you know Dr. Prince Good good. Yes OK. Credible the Sequoia the Sequoia. The we did studies the national park pretty resourceful boarding 1087. And we tracked material from the San Joaquin Valley it was serious. We found it was somewhat surprisingly that the peak ozone level. At the City of Azalea and it's every summer day was essential the same as it was in giant forest at 6000 feet. And by the time you get 10000 feet it's gone way down. So we found was that the transported material from the valley floor up to six or seven thousand feet was extremely efficient. So the peak ozone levels present in the forest were the same as they were in the valley. Then along comes a night

time and the sun sets. They also level at the Stadio goes right to the floor goes to zero. But this year end of August it stays up there because why. Because automotive pollution eats ozone at night. Auto closure of automotive pollution makes ozone the day time but it eats it at night and has so few authors in the Sierras that at night time the OTA level stay high. So the early morning when the plants respire very heavily they're sparring it at very high always an atmosphere higher than down a second a valley floor. Very strange result. Jeffrey that's right. In fact I would do 80 to 90 percent of the defeat blind at the front of the range at 6000 feet. So serious damage most all. So we know that the old right in there along with the joints according to what.

I've seen some reports on it. It's sort of disturbing. And they handed Don Johns of course to sort of the armadillo of the plant world here a touch one of its needles. It's a very strange ancient form of things that are very tough. The Ouachita scaly the tree is a survivor. So George so the saplings that he quit could be quite sensitive toes and. So we grow three very very difficult regrowth is also very slow. Oh the mature trees so far. Cross your fingers. We've not seen any damage. If you have to type the needles that way the tree does its work. It's to me fairly unlikely. John Sequoia mature trees are going to hurt. I expect the young trees preferably growing trees but the ones will be hurt. Oh my God. There's about 17 kind of versus a few lawsuits they're out there looking.

A. You're doing. Too much.

Yeah. You can see what I'm hearing.

I think. Thank you. OK. Right. He and

Professor White. And. Anyone. Here. With. A university call for new. Assistant Professor of. City and regional planning. OK that's all we need to know the Bible. Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah yeah. Let's shift to department city regional planning and landscape architecture but not. Decide. How you want it. Oh I love the energy we have one. Shot. Right in. Here California Berkeley. Diseases that I have like three hats here I can be king says. OK all right go ahead. Start talking a. Little bit when we. Feel it's. Been. Good. Treat me.

Right. I mean. That's what. Really. Carries. California. Fires. You know. Since we're talking. And focusing. On. Problem. Cases here. Where the president has used the years in. Terms of. Population growth. In areas. It was just. This year Nevada's has gone through a dramatic growth spurt in the last 25 years. The regions more than double the population 350000 people moved into this year of between 1970 and 1990. And to give you a sense of scale that's comparable to the entire gold rush period. Four hundred forty nine thousand fifty five. Basically this year stated that little population for the next hundred twenty years and then doubled suddenly last 20 years. If you look at the future 20 25 years we're probably looking at close to the Kabul number of people moving in this year again. That's all concentrated

in the 40 percent of this year. That's not publicly you know. And so while a lot of the land base is oriented toward federal land issues a lot of the impact of population growth is going to be in a particular zone in the Western foothills about almost half of the population in this year now lives in three three counties that of placer in Eldorado counties those counties are all within commute distance of Sacramento. So we have transportation issues. We have roads being built we have habitat being chopped up. We have areas being isolated in terms of wildlife. We have really increased fire hazard. So she would always will. I mean those issues then the European tour. That's. OK I think that the most immediate threat and concern is really related to fire hazard in particular because we have had 70 years of fire suppression. That has built up a lot of fuels in the forests of the Sierra. But as

you move people into this year and I've worked as a fire dispatcher for TAA National Forest one summer and experienced this pretty directly you basically have to have new tactics to fight fires. You also have a pretty dramatic increase in the risk of far because people's cars and lawnmowers and chainsaws other things and that sparks are just the heat that can increase the risk of fire and the cost of fighting those fires goes up a lot. The second issue though and I think it's probably a more difficult one to deal with longer term is really that of wildlife habitat that the more roads we have the more people we have the more domestic cats we have in dogs. Exotic vegetation fences all these things and of affecting wildlife in a pretty direct way. But it's a very slow process and it's hard to see that effect directly. It's hard to see what the impacts are for people's pocketbooks. Where's the fire issue it's a little bit clear. So. That. You're. Right. That.

Was. The One. For years to live their. Life. It's. That. That. I'm. Not. Proud. Of the way. Well the 30 million dollars a year for habitat was for both deer and not mine. The idea was that you create habitat for deer as well as mountain lion that we could maintain stable populations. I don't really know how those dollars are spent but clearly an issue comes up of what are the conflicts between that policy and the human settlement. This came up force the spring with the attack of not by a mountain lion of a jogger here offer. I just heard the radio

today though it's interesting that the husband of the woman who was killed basically withdrew any litigation against the state because he said we should take responsibility for what we're doing. And that's an issue. That we have to struggle with as it's not really a case of them out of line having moved in to the human habitat. It's a case of the humans having moved into the mountain lions habitat and more and more as people move into this year I think we're going to face conflicts between wildlife and humans and we have to basically go in with the recognition of those conflicts should not occur. So I don't think that it really calls for a dramatic change in what we're doing but it does require us to move in with the recognition that this is not suburbia This is the wild land that we're going to and as people move into areas where they want a natural experience they want to live in a rural place. There are certain costs that we that we face and it was very tragic what happened but I think it's a good recognition by her husband of of the risks that were there.

That's really not the answer you wanted but it just was I'm going to give you this morning. It's their take on. The case. That it's. Really. Just. Let's go to Chapel Road. I am not. Sure which. One of things we're seeing in the foothills particularly in Nevada plastered over our counties. It's a real increase in commuters. My family moved to Nevada County 1971 and at that point there were very few commuters down to Sacramento. But as Sacramento has moved up the hill toward Rockland Roseville Fulsom and a lot of hills in that area we've had more people living in the foothills of the community. At this point Eldorado County nearly 50 percent of the people who work work outside the county Nevada County it's around 30 percent Placer County it's hard to say. A lot of people are commuting down to Roseville Rocco. So we have two things One is we have increased

commuting which means a lot more vehicles driving longer distances. And secondly we just have a lot more people up there. Again when I left the back alley the first time to go to college in 1978 we had a total of two traffic lights in the entire county. At this point there are about five times that many. And that means more and more vehicles stopping for longer longer times. And one of the problems is that the investment in roads is not keeping up with the growth of people. So as more and more people go up let's say we double the population. We may have more and more delays because the roads can't handle it. So two times as much people maybe three times as much pollution because the cars are sitting there idle for a long time. So no one's really done good work analyzing the actual pollution. In the foothills because it's been very poor monitoring. This is clearly an issue that has to be addressed in more detail next 20 years. OK. Now this is just such a program.

I mean there are certain areas yeah you will be able to drill that know the wonderful clear night lines of thought and gives me the background. Mr. Brown does it help the fight was between. Yes sir everything Ed. These are absolutely. OK so. Why don't you go ahead then and start me a little bit on this. Now we're looking. Away actually and the basis for much of. Transition. Resource extraction in other industries. Turning our backs on lovers then there's not a nation which I used to automatically by virtue of existing jobs anyway. OK. I think the really big changes happen this year and I think it's driving the movement of all these people and is a shift from what I have seen as how the historic base of this

year which is commodity extraction for one hundred twenty years this year was about taking resources and shipping them someplace else where it was mind money material gold or timber or water or whatever was the idea was you took it from this year and shipped it somewhere and it had value somewhere else. We now see is increasingly the resources of the Sierra have value in place. So the water has value for recreation for wildlife for people's backdrop where they want to live the forests more and more have more value in terms of maintaining protecting the watershed for downstream urbanites or as a backdrop for recreation or as a backdrop as a place to live. Than they do as commodity exports. It doesn't mean that there isn't so lot of value in shipping timber out. But more and more there's a conflict that's emerging between keeping the trees in place and shipping them out. In terms of the dependence of the Sira communities on logging which is a very hot issue in terms of federal lands what we're seeing is that from

1970 in 1990 we've analyzed the census data. We've also analyzed a lot of climate data and basically the level of employment in the timber sector has gone down. It's either stayed steady in certain areas we're gone down overall while the population has more than double. The new people that are coming in are not working in that sector. They're working in other areas. Either they're commuting or they are self-employed or more or more they're working in jobs that don't need to be any particular place. There's electronics firm or as a publisher or some other kind of thing that can be where they want to be. Those people are choosing to move to the seer because this year has amenities. It has recreation clean air good schools. Basically small town life where they can interact with people and not be anonymous. So in terms of dependence on. Timber. There are only a few pockets that really have strong dependence and those areas have not experienced the rapid growth in those places have higher levels of poverty lower levels of income fewer in

migrants. They basically have a really difficult situation in terms of their social systems. Governments are in a tougher stance in terms of finances. What we need to do in thinking about walking this year is think about how it affects specific communities. OK so there are particular areas plus I'm sorry Plumas and Syrah counties are really the only two counties that stand out in this year as being really timber dependent. There are some other pockets little communities throughout the Sierra that have high timber dependence but most of the communities do not have a very significant dependence upon timber. And so we can't really have a one size fits all policy for trying to help local communities in some cases. If we promote the timber side of it I think will undermine the recreation the retirement and a lot of the commuter side of it. So the local economy may be worse off in some cases if we undermine the aesthetic and amenity values by promoting the timber side. Where is that automation is an issue that is.

Clearly affecting the level of employment in the mill side of the timber sector. It doesn't really affect the same degree the walking side although there are some impact there was some new technologies. But it's clear that following the 1982 low point in both the state's economy and the timber sector that there was a lot of automation a lot of concentration of. Mill capacity. It's not just automation within the Sierra but also a concentration of mill capacity outside the sea or into the Central Valley. More and more mills are being located in the Central Valley where they can draw on many different resources both private and public from a broad range of the syrup is illustrated by an experience I had two years ago on passing the North Fork mill down in the derrick county I'd come out of the Sierra National Forest following two logging trucks that had just done a green sale near the San Joaquin River and I expected that the trucks turn into the mill but they didn't. They drove right past the mill and I

passed the trucks. I saw they both had reading addresses. They were driving up the valley to reading because that mill it out with the local mill for that timber. So there is a direct relationship necessarily between what gets cut in a local place and what the local community fills in terms of the economic impact. We're even seen Oregon Mills bidding on Sira timber sales now and so there's competition throughout the entire West Coast for timber. And that really means that you have to look more closely at the direct relationships before you assume that reduction timber sales is going to reduce local well-being. Yeah it's just a receiver. I'm dealing with. OK so. I was just thinking of what happens you know. OK. He was a mega corporations and their son and you can return to a local.

Well I think that in in thinking about the timber sector. There are kind of two levels of conflict. One is between the environmentalists and the temperate industry and the other is within the timber industry. And what you were just raises that small Millers have been driven out of business in many cases you know stuff. If thinking about the force issues and I really would rather call a forest than timber issues because there's a much more at stake than just temper. There are kind of two conflicts going on. One is between the environmentalists and the timber industry over whether the forest should primarily provide Tempur or they should primarily provide other things water. Recreation wildlife other aesthetic values. Basically the non-market values. But there's also this conflict between the small timber industry workers or mill owners and the really large mills and large timber entities

that have really been able to take over a lot of the industry. Somewhere the range of 40 percent in all capacity in this year is now controlled by one company. And we're talking about basically three or four companies controlling almost. Two thirds of the capacity somewhere in that range is so small Millers have been driven out. I think that if you start to look at particular kinds of policies though there may be opportunities that those small mill owners can take advantage of the big military can't. In particular when we think about things like basically fuel reduction. Cutting the undergrowth out that is a big fire hazard now. Restoring. The water ships to protect water quality and downstream hydroelectric production and water production for urban areas. A lot of those things are very labor intensive. They basically require different kinds of technologies that require a lot of people skills. And I see an opportunity here for both the small middle order that might specialize in handling those kinds of materials where the big mill owner

may not because they're focused on the big timber side of it lumber production. A small mill owner might focus on handling smaller material trains to biomass which may then be used for either energy production or other kinds of uses. And also bloggers. Can increasingly get involved in restoration activities and basically reducing our fire hazard to protect the rest of us who claim that we want things like a healthy forest. OK we don't want to just be a timber harvest. Forest. The problem though is that right now the only product you get any money for is timber. That's what we need to think about I think are ways for urbanites like myself or other people that benefit from the Healthy Forest to put resources back into local communities to point out of work longer hours people using graders and other material other Quitman that normally is used in the job you get them out there during restoration and fuels reduction. And those those strategies.

Are very labor intensive and they require a lot of resources. We need to put some real dollars toward that. But they won't come just from. The existing institutions we really need to think about new kinds of policies that will shift resources from those of us who claim we don't want to harvest to those who've just been put out of out of work. Who were doing timber harvest. So. My. Account of how it goes that's funny. These sorts of policies are these recommendations. Someone such as yourself will end up. Making. The legislation but that you have read these verses as. Well. Where the dollars come from. We need to find. Basically ways to we need to find ways to link existing institutions. That are currently. Valuing things in different ways and basically don't link people across the resource as kind of an abstract way to put it. But. The clearest link I see is water. That's my personal opinion and I don't think we've explored it

thoroughly enough but I think there are opportunities through through things like this year in about ecosystem project or through state initiatives or federal initiatives to look really closely at how can we take the water users of the state who get most of their water from the Sierra whether it's the east side with the Los Angeles part water power on the west side of the Central Valley Project in the state water project. How do we link those routes those people who get water benefits with these communities that were timber dependent and have the responsibility basically for managing a water ship. I mention that this year and Plumas County is the most timber dependent communities in this year are the only two communities only two counties rather where more than 10 percent of people are poor in the timber sector. They're also at the heart of the Feather River Watershed. We're 60 percent of the state water projects water comes from. I've estimated the value of water. Through the Federal for the river watershed for both higher production and the water value itself downstream and it's about 100 times or more. What the value of the

timber payroll is in those two counties. Now if we were to put a 1 percent tax. On the Water value both in how do water production and water use for urbanites like myself were the main beneficiaries would have a relatively small impact upon our bills for water power. We could immediately put resources back into the watershed for watershed restoration. Now a lot more work needs to be done to analyze these kinds of things and there are a lot of impediments to it. But at least those ideas need to be explored rather than just turn into a battle. With an assumption that the current rules have to be in place forever. So. I mean that's. I can give you more detail numbers on that later I don't I don't have that on my hand I don't want to do that.